Memory Alpha talk:Bots
Python Wikipedia Bot (moved from Memory Alpha:Ten Forward) Memory Alpha is now being supported by the Python Wikipedia Bot Framework http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywikipediabot/. -- Head 11:34, 24 Feb 2005 (GMT) : After some research I found https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1118907&group_id=93107&atid=603141 and http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=6636372&forum_id=36014. It reads that this Bot is now enabled for Memory Alpha but I think it's not in use yet. Are there any plans for bot-policies what-so-ever? -- Florian - [[ :Florian K|'' ]] 12:35, 24 Feb 2005 (GMT) ::Could we please get some opinions on this topic? We of MA/de would like to use this bot in order to set interwiki links for episodes and categories. -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 10:04, 7 Mar 2005 (GMT) :::My main concern is that if it is used, will it have an effect on the performanc of MA ?. I often noticed that it can take 5+ seconds to load a page, from my point of view MA is sluggish. Using this bot might increase this IMHO -- Q 18:18, 9 Mar 2005 (GMT) ::::I just read some of the wikimedia articles about bots, and wouldn't be opposed to have ''some bots on MA as well. We should adopt these policies, though and, regarding the recent performance problems, the bot should definitely be throttled... -- Cid Highwind 20:05, 9 Mar 2005 (GMT) :::::True the server performence is one of the most valid argument against bots. On the it edited up to five pages per minute which sounds about fair if there are no other edits around. Due to the size of Memory Alpha only a few bots are necessary, I'd say one for interwiki links, one for categories (maybe) and another one for tables. In MA/de we are a bit ahead and already did set up a Policy. However there is still time to discuss this, because the bot framework has a minor bug with German Umlaute, so my main intention to use the bot as interwiki link putter is a bit delayed. -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 08:43, 10 Mar 2005 (GMT) : Speaking of performance, seems like all wikicities are currently running on ross.bomis.com, which is overloaded in some kind. Although other wikicities have reponse-times lower than 1 or 2 seconds. If you have a random Memory Alpha article, you can read something like this within the HTML-source: "Served by ross.bomis.com in 4.61 secs." If that would be something about database-size, Creatures-Wiki should have similar performance-issues. Must be something about Memory Alpha, since dutch, german an english versions seem to be slower than they should be. Perhaps it's all imaginary.. -- Florian - [[ :Florian K|'' ]] 13:01, 14 Mar 2005 (GMT) ::This is no longer the case since Memory Alpha and Wikicities are now running on three of their own servers in addition to that ross.bomis.com one. See Wikicities:Technical support for details. Angela 22:35, 30 Mar 2005 (EST) ::I'd support a regulation to put a restrictive throttle on bots here to prevent server flood -- but i think there's a lot that could be done with them. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 22:36, 26 Mar 2005 (EST) I went ahead to create the page Memory Alpha:Bots which is now a translation of the bot policy we did set up at MA/de. Angela did also put bot flags to User:Morn and User:DataMA, so that their edits can be removed from the recent changes. -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 07:01, 2 Apr 2005 (EST) : At the moment we are somewhat blocked in MA/de (and MA/nl) since both bots are "normal" users. No-one in MA:de or MA:nl has steward-privileges and we must wait until Jason will "promote" someone. Without bot-flag enabled, all batch-processes will penetrate the "recent changes" log which is bad for normal users (thinking of 200 changes a day or more). @Dan and Harry: Will you please set bot-flag as soon as possible on MA:de? -- Florian - ✍ talk 10:41, 6 Apr 2005 (EDT) EnEpiLink A new bot for Episode title linking to Episode listing pages Hey guys, I've started an RFC (request for comments) for a bot to link Episode titles into the Episode listings pages... The basic premise is to link episode article summaries into any listings pages that list the episode. For example, the Voyager series has an Episode listing in the "VOYAGER Series" article, and each Season has its own Episode listing again. The bot really has a much more profound use as to creating linked text in WIkis, whereas text from a source article can be propogated to multiple places and optionally the Wiki engine could treat those propogations as "soft edits" See the User:EnEpiLink page for more specifics. and dont forget to post initial suggestions here! --Funkdubious 22:36, 22 Oct 2005 (UTC) Pages that would get the initial treatment: *[[VOY#Episode List|''Voyager series episode listings]] (already done, click to see example) **Season 1 **Season 2 **...etc *''The Next Generation'' series episode listings **Season 1 **...etc *''TAS'' Episode list *''DS9'' Episode listing :I don't see any reason for a need for this. I prefer to keep things the way they are now, and this seems to clutter the list a bit. - AJHalliwell 00:20, 24 Oct 2005 (UTC) ::I prefer this as new format for the series pages. Perhaps also without pictures. --Memory 20:15, 24 Oct 2005 (UTC) ::: I don't. This form clutters the page and has no advantage to browse through MA's episodes easily. Because of its placement, between the cast and background info, it forces the reader to scroll to the end of the page before he or she has something useful to look at. (repositioning it does not prevent this) The form it currently has is much more suited for navigation. -- Q 15:00, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC) I can work in that format. Although assembling the stardate info might be harder, but thats the beauty of a wiki, I suppose.--Funkdubious 17:48, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC) :::There is no reason to do what you are suggesting, Funkdubious. If anyone wishes to learn about the episode, all they need to do is click on the link to that episode. There is no need to clutter the pages with information people can read by just one click. --From Andoria with Love 20:19, 24 Oct 2005 (UTC) Then you're saying there's no reason for "information at your fingertips", and instead vying for "information just one more click away" or "information maybe if you search the right keywords". The key to a great database (which Memory Alpha is) is having several different views of the information. Which would include at least an episode description whenever episodes are listed in a table, but not having each episode's minutia which is perfect for the actual episode page. --Funkdubious 17:48, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC) ::::I think it is more important to have one central resource for each piece of information than to have "information at your fingertips" everywhere. Putting information not only on the page where it belongs, but also on several other pages means much content duplication and as a result, more work to keep everything updated all the time. ::::Your suggestion actually consists of two questions: Do we need it (episode summaries on every page), and if we need it, how do we achieve it? I personally think that we don't need it, but if the majority thinks otherwise, I'd still strongly suggest not to use a bot to copy information if there's a much better solution: If this is really considered necessary, templates could be created for each episode (for example, ), containing a small 3-4 sentence summary of the episode. This template could then be included in the episode article and everywhere else. That way, there's only one page that has to be edited, not many. -- Cid Highwind 12:30, 30 Oct 2005 (UTC) :::::I hear you, Cid, and I appreciate your comments. From my point of view, it seems much more concise to have the descriptions tag along with the episode listings, since the description is one of the primary ways to distinguish between episodes. I agree that you can click on the episode title... I was just suggesting that having the episode descriptions help the users to quickly locate the episode being sought. "Oh yeah... thats the one I'm thinking of!" Basically having that information minimally aggregated for the viewers via the episode list. I'd love to be instructed on how to do this properly, because I feel its a big win for everyone. :::::On another note, if I was willing to invest in the time to do it (about 3 seconds per episode), then I'd surely appreciate Shran not reverting the changes because He thinks it shouldn't be that way. Especially since the discussion hasn't run its course. Not only is that rude, but awfully pretentious.--Funkdubious 07:27, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC) :::::: I must agree it has its advantages. I myself ran into the same problem were I was looking for a particular episode from which I knew its contents but not the title anymore. A small description beside the link might have helped to find the episode quicker. -- Q 15:00, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC) :::::::Precisely what I'm talking about Q. Most of the time I don't remember the title, but I obviously remember what the episode was about. Thanks for reaffirming my position. Any other comments?--Funkdubious 18:10, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC) Another angle to this is Episode ratings. With members/raters voting on the article page, the ratings could transfer into the VOY/TNG/etc pages, showing popular episodes. Perhaps we just need a good Episode listing template?--Funkdubious 18:47, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC) Here's a little supporting evidence for having the descriptions: *Talk:Star_Trek:_Voyager#a_different_world Well since I'm not seeing a whole lot of opposition to it (and can't imagine why there would be), I'll invest the time to make it look good. Optimally, we can figure out a way to have the Episode Descriptions "auto-export" but I don't believe current Wiki implementations allow for this. (Templates come to mind... whereas the Episode page would have and then the episode link page could have: *Caretaker: In addition, I've proposed this "exporting" to the MediaWiki feature request list.--Funkdubious 02:48, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC) :I don't know if you're still insisting on that "export" feature because you like it so much, or because you haven't completely understood how templates work, yet - so I'm just going to present the way that already would work, again: :# Create a template page for the episode description, for example Template:Description_Caretaker (just a suggestion: use that order instead of Caretaker_Description to have all episode description templates sorted together later). :# Move the existing description from the episode article to that page and replace it with a template link: :# Also use that template link in whatever other contexts you want, for example: ;Caretaker: :-- Cid Highwind 12:35, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC) ::Yeah I do like the export feature, and Templates would be a good workaround for what I'm trying to accomplish. But since the episode descriptions shouldn't be changing that often, it should be ok.--Funkdubious 18:00, 10 Nov 2005 (UTC) ::Another thing, the MediaWiki devs are considering meta-data to be attached to pages. I filed a feature request at bugzilla.wikimedia.org: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3911. They appear to be considering the new feature, which would be exactly what we need here. Basically, you'd create meta-data for the article and have both the page and the episode listing page import that meta-data. For instance, the episode pages would get KeyValue pair like "Description"="some description", then in the episode page, you'd have , not sure what the syntax would be for one page to import the meta-data from another page, but the possibility is being considered.--Funkdubious 18:08, 10 Nov 2005 (UTC) Why are you going template-happy over something that will have use on exactly two pages (the series page and the season page)? That sounds a bit harsh, but honestly, we don't need 700+ new templates (that's how many Trek episodes there are) for something like this... I do like the idea of descriptions possibly, but not templates or ratings (see below conversation on ratings). --Broik 15:42, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC) :Yeah, the template thing is probably a bit overboard. It would be nice (for purity sake) for the Description to automatically update Listings if the Episode page itself's description is changed. But in theory, the episode descriptions shouldn't change, and therefore the listing pages wouldn't change after the initial table treatment. --Funkdubious 18:13, 10 Nov 2005 (UTC) As I wrote above, I prefer this, so we don't need these 700 (!) temps. --Memory 20:59, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC) :Given all the above text, an episode list with descriptions helps the casual Trek fan to find the particular episode he was looking for. Although I do like the TAS episode list, its still missing a more vital piece of info for somebody who would've sought out the Episode list, IMHO. Also, I agree that 700 new templates is probably overkill, unfortunately. On the other hand, the episode descriptions won't be changing so it should be ok. ...And since the DB is only 8MB, according to the dump, it has the space ;-)--Funkdubious 18:08, 10 Nov 2005 (UTC) OK, let me throw in my two bits... IMHO what we lack among all the episode listings is STANDARD. I do like the TAS listing, but we could deal with less information. I don't think that we need a bot right now. What I think we need first is a standard, then we can think about a bot. --MstrControl 01:58, 3 Dec 2005 (UTC) Removing "EnEpiLink" I have removed this entry from the list of new bots: * EnEpiLink is a new bot (proposal) for linking Episode summary text into various listing pages. Controller/developer: Funkdubious The bot has not edited in more than a year, and the owner edited only twice last year. The bot never had the bot flag set. I think it is safe to say that the bot is not being developed or used. --Bp 06:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC) Bots Probably not the best topic here on MA, but I was trying figure out where one can learn how to make/use bots like here on MA? For template adjustments and category additions and whatnot. --Terran Officer 00:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC) : We got em, Memory Alpha:Bots, there is just a snaffu with wikia right now that is making them add unnecessary text along with their edits. There are at least 4 active or soon-to-be-(re)active ones, and a couple others that aren't. --Alan 00:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC) Thanks, I'm trying to understand some of this, as I may need a couple bots for my project to save some time. I am not sure on the installation though, and other things, oi ><. Are the bot files installed on the server where the MediaWiki is installed, or the "users" computer?--Terran Officer 01:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC) ::Believe it or not, the Memory Alpha:Bots page does talk about one framework for building bots. G'head and read it and you'll discover it. I realize this, I am relativity new to all of this, and I am confused on several aspects (such as installation, sadly). I'm also trying to figure out what to do to allow edits to templates, additions and order of categories and such. Thanks for the links, though. It's appreciated. --Terran Officer 03:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC) :::Not to jump in on someone elses subject but... can anyone create a bot? As Sulfur and others may have noticed, I do a lot of editing when it comes to ranks and how they are written in an article (and linked). So, let's say, could I make a bot that runs through articles and changes subsequent references to ranks (ie., second time someone has written Lieutenant) to its correct abbreviation (which would be Lt.)? I mean, I think it just cleans up the articles better. Any thoughts on this?--Obey the Fist!! 21:52, March 4, 2010 (UTC) ::::I don't think it would be a valid thing to do even manually - why would we want to use abbreviations throughout a whole article? This is something that needs to be discussed elsewhere, though. Please, before trying do to that on a huge number of articles, let's see an example and a discussion. That aside, a change like that isn't really what a bot is made for - running that task completely automated would probably lead to too many articles being changed that should not be changed... -- Cid Highwind 23:29, March 4, 2010 (UTC) Bot flag request I've created a new bot, User:SulfBot. His talk page/user page both direct to mine, and on there are the token bits of info that he does. The plan is to update the "Image:" namespace calls to "File:" calls for starters. Once that's done, the sky is the limit. Well, that and my comprehension of regular expressions. :) Regardless, I'd like to request a bot flag, and for such, community consensus is required. -- sulfur 15:40, March 4, 2010 (UTC) :Yay! -- Cid Highwind 15:42, March 4, 2010 (UTC) ::bp responds in the affirmative. --bp 15:58, March 4, 2010 (UTC) :::Sounds good. --31dot 16:03, March 4, 2010 (UTC) ::::*thumbs up* - 19:57, March 4, 2010 (UTC) :::::Late, and useless, but yip yip yahoo go for it!--Obey the Fist!! 21:46, March 4, 2010 (UTC) ::::::And done. Thanks for getting agreement Sulfur -- sannse (talk) 00:08, March 5, 2010 (UTC) Last changes lists To access this page, after a month without being able to get here, either logged in or out, I had to overwrite the page and disable the "Last changes" dpl lists. I think these should be removed completely, as a simple link to the bot's contributions should be more than enough, and won't make this page inaccessible. - 21:39, February 6, 2012 (UTC) Interwiki working? Hey all you bot runners. I'd like to ask you for some help. I set up again my bot, all with the latest frameworks. But neither core nor compat lets me run the interwiki script properly. So I want to ask those of you, who have that script running lately, if you'd please help me with that. Which framework are you using, and which python version? I'd like to have that feature back again, but whatever I do it always quits working without any edit. Thanks a lot --Plasmarelais 16:55, April 17, 2014 (UTC) Archbot flag request I've downloaded the AutoWikiBrowser, which will let me do simple find and replace runs. I don't plan to use this often, because it requires a database dump to work outside of some simple built-in options, mostly category and whatlinkshere based. That said, since using it beyond the test I ran today requires community consensus, I'm asking for that now. - 02:02, January 5, 2018 (UTC) :With no dissent, I've put in a request for this to happen. -- sulfur (talk) 16:22, March 1, 2018 (UTC)